About Us

Boston Children’s Hospital invests heavily in research because science saves lives. We are focused on accelerating new treatments for devastating diseases — our discoveries translate from the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside, where they have been improving the health of children and adults since 1869.

Today, our research enterprise is the world's largest and most highly-funded at a pediatric hospital, investing $355 million in expenditures in fiscal year 2017 alone. In FY2018, Boston Children’s was #1 in National Institutes of Health funding for all U.S. children’s hospitals, and #6 in funding for research institutes at any independent hospital. More than 3,000 basic, clinical and translational research employees work in our dedicated facilities, which total nearly 1 million square feet of space.

Members of our research community include nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 16 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators and alumni, and eight Lasker Award recipients. In total, our research community publishes more peer-reviewed research in top scientific journals than the next 20 children’s hospitals combined — more than 3,000 annually since 2015.

Research discovery platforms

genetics and genomics

bioinformatics

large, diverse rare disease populations

biobank of tissues from patients with diverse disorders

multiple animal models

engineered tissues, including organs on chips

patient-derived, disease-specific cell lines

automated, high-throughput image analysis

proteomics, metabolomics, methylomics and other “omics”

gene editing with CRISPR/Cas9 technology

biomaterials and bioengineering

zebrafish drug discovery platforms

3D human tissue construct for vaccine testing

Research discovery highlights

Recently, our scientists have:

restored hearing in deaf mice with gene therapy

showed how immune cells help shape brain connections during development, opening new angles on schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease

created blood stem cells in the lab

developed new drug delivery methods, like nanoparticles activated by light or ultrasound, drug eluting contact lenses and bioengineered blood vessels

used fetal cells from amniotic fluid to repair congenital defects in animal models

developed a one-time topical antibiotic treatment for otitis media

used biodegradable silk scaffolds to regenerate hollow structures like the bladder and esophagus.

Precision medicine initiatives

“Precision medicine” at Boston Children’s begins with discoveries at the lab bench and ends with customized care based a patient’s genetic profile and disease biology. That can mean an epilepsy drug targeted to a child’s specific mutation, a vaccine designed specifically for the newborn immune system or genetic sequencing to match cancer patients with the right therapies. A few of our initiatives:

Boston Children's Hospital has been named the #1 children's hospital in the nation by U.S. News and World Report for the fifth year in a row! It's an honor that we could not have achieved without you. On behalf of every member of our Boston Children's team, thank you for inspiring us to be bolder, dream bigger, and make the impossible possible for our patients and families.